My Last Breath
by ferae naturae
Summary: You know I can't stay long. All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid (S/E deathfic x2)
1. My Last Breath

Last breath

By Ferae Naturae

An Explanation: This was initially inspired by Jouley's comment in the review of ChEsTeRz finale to the challenge, regarding Lauren Lee Smith leaving Mutant X and the mess it makes of the Shal/Emma fandom. "So i guess it doesn't matter anymore if you send the stories to Tribune.. :( Unless they decide to throw in a quickie shal/emma subplot in the first ten minutes of season 3 before emma bites the big one.." I was thinking about it and I could kinda see a Buffy/Angel type thing - where they kill her coz she's bad, but then she's good, but still dead :S I've wanted to use some Evenescence in a deathfic for a while because the album Fallen is FULL of potential deathfic material. The song is My Last Breath.'

"You can't Adam. You can't. Please don't say you're going to do this." Adam better than any of the others knew what Emma meant to Shalimar. But this was not a decision he could go back on.

"I'm sorry Shalimar. This is the way it has to be."

"There has to be another way." She whispered, desperate. She could feel the tears rising in her eyes, fighting for release.

"You know we wouldn't be suggesting this if there was."

"She's out of control Shal." Jesse added. "We have to stop her before anyone else gets hurt." Shalimar turned away.

"Why is she doing this? What happened that changed her?" She demanded of Adam, as if he held all the answers.

"She got too powerful." He replied quietly.

"Power doesn't change people. Power doesn't turn a wonderful person into someone who doesn't give a damn about anything."

"But Emma does care about one thing, Shalimar. Just one thing. More power, just like all other powerful people. Power corrupts, and absolute power..." She lashed out. Not truly wanting to hurt him, but wanting him to stop. Dreading seeing the truth. He regained his feet as she span on her heel and ran, the blood on his face haunting her.

Absolute power... when had Emma reached the point where she lost all perception of love and life in the dream for absolute power - or was the power that she had hidden from them that impressive that it might be considered absolute?

She remembered a time when she might have trusted Emma DeLauro with her life, they had both used their powers once or twice for questionable motives, but it had always been for a reason they had thought was right and so could be forgiven later. They'd even used their powers on each other once or twice. It had all been part of their friendship, another hurdle to overcome. She couldn't believe it would come to this.

She watched from the corner of the building. They had left without her, but they had been lazy. They had not seen her follow. They were too worried themselves. She watched from the corner of the building as the dart flew. She watched as it fell. She saw the incredible wave of power, and the second and the third. She saw her friends fall, crying to themselves, screaming, beginning for death. Jesse lay silent, on his back as though he was watching the sky. His eyes held nothing. The soft rise and fall of his chest was all she saw to show the life in his body.

Emma turned away from them, discarding them. They were no threat to her anymore. Shalimar's mind was full of desperation. She blended in with the others, hidden in their emotions, she stepped up behind Emma silently and lifted the gun once more.

The dart flew true and she saw Emma stagger. She moved to her side as she fell, taking her stilling body in her arms and holding her. Her bitter tears fell silent as all time stopped.

_Hold on to me love  
You know I can't stay long  
All I wanted to say was  
I love you and I'm not afraid.  
Can you hear me?  
Can you feel me in your arms?  
  
Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
All my thoughts of you  
Sweet raptured light  
It ends here tonight  
  
I'll miss the winter  
A world of fragile things  
Look for me in the white forest  
Hiding in a hollow tree (come find me)  
I know you hear me  
I can taste it in your tears  
  
Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
All my thoughts of you  
Sweet Raptured light  
It ends here tonight  
  
Closing your eyes to disappear  
You pray your dreams will leave you here  
But still you wake and know the truth  
No one's there  
  
Say goodnight  
Don't be afraid  
Calling me  
Calling me as you fade to black  
_

Her last breath whistled out of her body, giving its last message and Shalimar brought her close to whisper in her ear.

"I know. I love you too. Sleep well."


	2. Tourniquet

I Lay Dying

By Ferae Naturae

AN: A sequel, but not in the traditional sense, a slightly different story. Don't jump to conclusions. This is Tourniquet.

Emma looked on as she slept. A silence, cold and dark, burned in her. He had nearly killed her, his hands carving into her skin, leaving her for them to find unconscious and bloody. She was not his first victim, there had been many before her, but she hadn't been a simple bystander. She had fought him with all she had, and more. She had fought him. And he had won. Her body rested but her mind struggled on, nightmares plaguing her, making her stir and pull at her wounds. Making her cry out. Emma lay a hand on her shoulder, begging her forgiveness as she hit her with a psionic blast. She needed to rest, if this was the only way then this was the way it would be. Emma had things to do.

Revenge.

She found him in a house, standing over his next victim. She called his attention as she begged the woman to run. The woman stood slowly, cuts already shown on her body. But she would live. It wasn't his way to kill. She was here to kill.

His hands were deadly, the power he held in them, the power that had been given him, lashing out at his command. Like an invisible whip he flailed his power, but she was stronger, her mind was stronger. He would break, in time.

She screamed her defiance to the heavens, blood flowing from the cuts on her body as the noise did her throat. She had won. Gravity pulled her to the ground and she lay there, feeling the ebb and flow of her own emotions, the flare and quiet of her power. She could feel it leaking from her body, the power and the blood. It seeped and dripped.

She wondered, as her thoughts drifted away from her body, if she had a place in heaven, the ungodly thing that she was. God had a place in his home for all his creations. But she wasn't his. She didn't belong to him. She was taken, owned by another entity. Man's curiosity, his intrigue. Did this entity have a home to where she could go once the blood stopped flowing? Once the power had seeped to its end?

There was a moment like the snap of a tensioned elastic band. She felt like she had been thrown away from herself. Her mind span for a moment, uncontrolled. She felt betrayed. Had she been betrayed? She was alone perhaps that was betrayal. She felt like she was falling, speeding to the ground, a sting of sadness, a longing for company. She reached out and found another.

__

I lay dying  
I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal  
I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming  
Am I too lost to be saved?  
Am I too lost?

"Don't worry Emma. I found you. I'll save you. Hold on to me."

As her decent slowed and she began to rise once more, she knew. The angel with the halo of yellow, body thick with bandages, had completed her mission. She was saved. She was no longer alone. She was saved.

"Forgive me."

__

Do you remember me  
Lost for so long  
Will you be on the other side  
Or will you forget me  
I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming  
Am I too lost to be saved?  
Am I too lost?

A lone woman stood beside a simple gravestone, scars on her arms and stomach shown clear by the brief top she wore, the light clean stone declared the stone as a loved one more recently lost. The woman spoke with tears in her eyes and her voice. "I'll never forget you. Wait for me."


End file.
